


Where Did Everybody Go?

by Kira_Dattei



Series: The Old Guard Whumptober 2020 [8]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Established Relationship, Immortal Found Family, M/M, Phobias, Pre-Canon, Whumptober 2020, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-08
Updated: 2020-11-08
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:36:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27442780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kira_Dattei/pseuds/Kira_Dattei
Summary: Some things they experience don’t go away. Each of the immortals have that thing or two that just waits around in the back of their minds until the next chance to make it hard to sleep.Prompt: Isolation
Relationships: Andy | Andromache & Booker | Sebastien le Livre & Joe | Yusuf al-Kaysani & Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Series: The Old Guard Whumptober 2020 [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1994617
Kudos: 64





	Where Did Everybody Go?

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not a whump writer so I can't promise a huge amount of whump in all of these. I just picked the prompt from each day that actually sparked an idea and ran with it.  
> I'm mostly using these as a way to get a feel for the characters and I simply love the relationships given in canon and wanted to explore them.  
> Joe is the lucky whumpee for most of these because I just love him.
> 
> These are all going to be one-shots and none of them are necessarily connected to each other.

This was certainly one of the more undesirable situations Joseph had faced in the past decade or so.

It was made worse that he’d have to admit to Booker that he’d been right and that usually ended up with a few months too many of the man being very difficult to tolerate. He was reaching that point in his immortality that it occurred to him that people didn’t live as long as he did so he was officially more experienced than most of the people on the planet and it overshadowed the fact that he was the youngest out of them by several centuries. The man’s belligerent personality seemed to amplify that.

Joseph had already apologized to Andrea profusely for whenever he had put her through that. She had just given him a smug look and shrugged, then told him congratulations for the experience.

But Booker had told Joseph that he should sit out going to Germany. He was the only one of them who would truly stand out and that was extremely dangerous considering what was going on, what they were going to help with. Their efficacy relied on anonymity and Joseph couldn’t blend in with that population like Andrea, Booker, and Nico could.

But Andrea hadn’t told him he couldn’t and that was the only thing that would keep him from helping. Too many people had already suffered and died because of one man’s pursuit of genocide. He couldn’t just sit back while his family helped. He was more responsible for coordinating escape efforts and kept more to the less exposed side of any help, only really getting involved when they were in a larger scale fight where he could very easily just be another combatant, so it wasn’t like he’d been completely dismissive of the risk to him simply because his skin wasn’t pale. He just didn’t allow it to keep him from doing what he believed in.

His final argument had been that he wouldn’t automatically be targeted because of the nationality he appeared closest to as relations there were complicated. He’d also pointed out that if Booker didn’t do a better job of hiding his accent, he was in more danger than Joseph.

He assumed those points were actually why Andrea wasn’t restricting him from helping. It wasn’t a guarantee that he would be targeted, simply more possible than the rest of them.

“Allowed complacency Al-Kaysani,” he muttered to himself, tired of the silence.

He’d spent the better part of the past few hours pacing the very short expanse of the room the guards had thrown him into. It was only about twelve paces across and was completely empty and dark. It had been a while since he’d been in so confined a cell. He trusted his accounting of how much time had passed because nine hundred years was plenty of time to gain quite the reliable awareness of time passing.

His greatest concern was that the guards who were holding him knew something of his healing.

He’d been helping find people in the ruins of destroyed parts of Poland, the four immortals spread over a large area with plans to meet up the next day, helping them get to safety, when German forces had doubled back. He’d become so focused on saving people that he hadn’t noticed the patrols until they were too close to completely avoid and he had fought to make sure as many escaped as possible. Eventually he’d taken a few too many well-enough placed bullets to go down. As soon as he was healed, he’d attacked again and had gotten through many more guards before again causing him enough injury that he went down and they had enough time to get him chained up.

Their first attempt at chaining him hadn’t been sufficient, thinking just securing his hands together was enough, not realizing it just attached metal to his wrists he could strike them with, and he took out another ten before they actually restrained him enough that he could barely walk, being dragged by a few soldiers to where they were holding him now.

Once they threw him in this little, completely enclosed except for the single door hut, they’d stayed out. They hadn’t searched him though and he’d been able to pick the locks of the shackles and tossed them at the door once he was free.

He’d taken a lot of satisfaction in the sounds of surprise and the rambling of panicked German he heard. They calmed down quickly enough after he didn’t do anything else but it was the little things that were the most entertaining.

And considering that Joseph really didn’t like complete darkness like this, any distraction was preferred. He didn’t do well maintaining his composure in darkness. One of his worst experiences had been early in his immortality, when he and Nicolo were still learning that they truly did heal from everything. He’d been held down and his eyes had been burned out before the attackers had turned on Nicolo and Joseph had only heard his screams of pain for many minutes before it went silent. Based on how long it took to hear screams again and that they were all of the attackers, they had killed Nicolo and he had revived to kill them all. It had taken Yusuf a concerning amount of time to heal and for his vision to return but he remembered the darkness vividly, remembered the pain, remembered the fear he’d felt for his companion while he was helpless to do anything. He had difficulty tolerating darkness for many years after that and every time something happened that put him back into complete and unnatural darkness, he felt that old panic take hold again. It had been a long time since it had been bad enough to affect him though.

And he just needed to wait this out. Either they would have to open the door to move him wherever they intended to take him, or just to give him food or water because, as far as they knew, it wasn’t that he could come back to life, or Andrea, Nico, and Booker would track him down and they’d take care of the rest of the soldiers.

Granted, that last option would take the longest and he’d only been in there a few hours. They weren’t even due to meet up and that would be the guaranteed time that they knew something was wrong.

His sleep was going to be for shit for weeks and they were nowhere near finished helping here.

It was about to be a rough few years, Joseph predicted. And that would be after this settled down and he didn’t think that would be anytime soon. They’d all seen enough wars take shape to not see the signs here for what they were.

Joseph miscounted the steps and his arm bumped into the wall, let out an impatient sigh and wondered if he should try to cause enough commotion to get someone to try and restrain him again.

No, it hadn’t been enough time and he’d been relatively calm in here as far as they were concerned outside.

Well, time to change that and help himself by giving him something else to focus on. So he launched into a rather blasphemous diatribe about Adolf Hitler and those who followed him. And when he thought he covered enough of that in German, he switched to Hebrew, trying to speak in as modern of the language as possible. After that, he cycled through Polish, Dutch, French, Arabic, Italian, Greek, Vietnamese, Japanese, Mandarin, and then he started all over again in different dialects just because he could.

And it did make him feel better. The ones he was most often able to vent about what he thought of these people they fought against were his immortal family and they usually shared his views and allowed him to put into words much more eloquently what they thought. Nico was just as likely as able to articulate the complex emotions that was behind much of what they did, what told them which side of a conflict was worthy of their aid but he often left it to Joseph.

But the opportunity to actually be able to use it as a weapon against the people who believed such wasn’t as often presented, not at such lengths anyway.

They hadn’t ignored him either. six different people had slammed on the door and ordered him to shut up with less time between each command and he figured it wasn’t too far off from one of them trying a more direct approach. It was that certainty that had him staying on the wall next to the door just in case they came in shooting.

He’d just switched back to German when he heard the latch release and he held himself close to the wall as he continued speaking, not even breaking stride. The door swung open, not allowing much more light into the room as it was now dark, and there was a series of gunshots, Joseph letting them fire until they realized they weren’t hitting him and then he rushed around the corner, immediately knocking one of the rifles away before he knocked the soldier holding it out. He felt the sting of bullets pierce through his right arm but it wasn’t enough to slow him down as he eased close enough to take the handgun from the man’s holster at his side and in a precise arc, took out three more.

His eyes were adjusting quickly, the moon and distant lights providing more than enough for him to see clearly, especially after being in complete darkness for so long.

He discarded the handgun as he was able to grab a knife from one of the soldiers he’d shot, always preferring a blade to a firearm of any kind. Not to mention he was pissed about being stuck in that darkness for so long and he needed to work out some of his frustration. It wasn’t like he could leave any of these men alive after they knew his secret.

His ire meant he came out of this much more covered in blood than usual, with very little of it being his own.

Quynh had tried her best to teach him not to fight angry, to save it until after the fight as anger affected one’s ability to fight, made them miss things they would otherwise see clearly. And it had worked most of the time just not in times like now when he was upset for reasons that had nothing to do with the fight.

He wouldn’t regret it later. The only thing he would regret would be that there were likely innocent people who had died because they’d held him like this.

He considered finding somewhere to wash up and change his clothes before meeting back up with the others just so they didn’t know anything had gone wrong but ended up deciding against it. They’d know as soon as they saw him that something had happened. At least Nico and Andrea would. It could take Booker a little longer to recognize things like that.

There were about twenty men dead around him by the time he was finished. It wasn’t satisfying, not when he had light to be what soothed him right now, but at least he was finished and he took a moment to recover his breath. It had been a few decades since he’d fought this many on his own and he’d noticed the absence of Nico at his side to share the burden of combat. They could fight on their own, of course, and quite well, but they were most efficient when together. They were used to the presence of the other and how they moved around each other was automatic. They kept each other safe.

Joseph needed that now, needed to know the safety of Nico at his side and Andrea and Booker helping to watch his back.

He did take the time to move all the bodies into the hut he’d been held in, taking a fully loaded handgun and rifle as well as two knives since he hadn’t been able to find the weapons they took off of him and he was just grateful he hadn’t been carrying his scimitar.

He had just enough time to get back across the town to the rendezvous with the others, deciding to stop to at least wash his face and hands off so he at least didn’t startle them with how much blood he was stained with. Nico’s protective nature would already be kicking in once he knew that Joseph had been taken while they were apart, even if he’d been able to free himself relatively easily. And he’d get even more protective if Joseph had any nightmares over the next few days, which he was expecting. It wouldn’t matter how much or little blood had been Joseph’s.

They’d decided to meet at a partially destroyed hotel close to the center of the area of town they’d been searching. As Joseph got close, he could already see movement in one of the windows: that would be Booker. He wasn’t nearly as good at remaining undetected when acting as lookout. Nico could stay eerily still for hours on end and Andrea had a knack for finding good vantage points that were less likely to expose her.

He made his way to the room and stepped in, his eyes seeking out Nico immediately.

Nico, as expected, knew something just from that and there was likely something to his expression, because he quickly stood and crossed the small room to Joseph, wrapping his arms around his shoulders and holding him close, Joseph pressing his face into Nico’s neck as he returned the embrace.

“Are you alright, _hayati_?” Nico whispered into his ear and Joseph sighed in the relief already spreading through him.

He was safe.

“It’s been a dark few hours,” he replied, knowing his Nicolo would understand at once.

One of Nico’s hands moved up to tangle in Joseph’s hair, the curls still damp from his brief rinse.

Joseph placed a kiss on Nico’s neck just before he straightened up to pull away, catching sight of both Andrea and Booker watching them. He gave Nico a brief smile for show and requested, “Talk about it later?”

“Only if you promise we shouldn’t talk about it now,” Nico replied easily.

“You believe me to be so irresponsible?” he asked in mock offense. From the look Andrea was giving him, she would be pressing him for information later regardless of him talking to Nico. This place was bothering all of them to some degree and he had a feeling Andrea was going to become more protective than Nico. It happened sometimes with the more difficult fights they got involved with.

Lingering effects of what had happened to Quynh coming forward as she feared losing another of them like that so deeply.

Joseph and Nico did too.

“I believe you kind to a fault,” Nico answered as he leaned in to kiss Joseph briefly. “That kindness has driven you to delay speaking of something longer than you should if you think we are too busy now.”

That was true. But they all pushed themselves aside for the sake of seeing things through to completion.

“I settled it. It can afford to wait.”

He gave Andrea a pointed look, conveying that he was telling the truth and she gave him a short nod of acceptance. He wouldn’t put off telling her something important and she knew that. Nico did as well but his thoughts on what was considered important when it regarded Joseph were slightly different.

Though Nico must have relayed what little Joseph had revealed at some point before they left that hotel for their safe house because she declared that they were grabbing what they needed and moving on to their next safe house that night instead of in the morning. And the one they moved to was one a few floors up with quite a few windows so more light came in through the night.

Joseph truly was safe with them.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed. If you did, feel free to drop a kudo or comment and I will be ridiculously excited either way ^_^
> 
> Posting in order of the prompts, this puts this one as the first fic where I play with the idea of Joe having a phobia of complete darkness. Didn't plan for it to become a theme in a few of the prompts but it ended up sticking around so *shrugs*.


End file.
